INTRO

Venice A stage where every man must play a part,' but,
DUCTION in its more developed form, it was, I think, more likely to

have been borrowed from the Civile Conversation than
from any other work: Another used likewyse to say, that
'this world was a stage, wee the players whiche present
'the Comedie . . . and that wee whiche are the players,

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are in a manner all of us given to play those partes ' whiche you have spoken of'1 (Bk. 11. 118).

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When Touchstone seeks to overwhelm Corin by sheer force of logic, he does it in this way: Why, if thou never 'wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd' (111. i. 42 sqq.). Both in thought and in form of reasoning, the sentence seems to be closely related to the following: A man 'cannot be a right man without Conversation. For he 'that useth not company hath no experience, he that hath

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no experience, hath no judgement, and hee that hath no 'judgement, is no better then a beast' (Bk. 1. 47); while later on we read: ANNIB. This Countrey surely ' in my opynion, bringeth foorth no good servingmen. GUAZ. I thinke the cause of it is, for that in this 'place Princes sieldome keepe their Courtes where Servingmen cheefelye learne good behaviour' (Bk. 111. 107).

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1 Francis Douce has noticed this parallel in his Illustrations of Shakespeare, 1839, and has also quoted one other passage from Pettie's Guazzo bearing on the verses on Timon's tomb (Civile Conversation, Bk. I. 21). It is difficult to understand how so vigilant and laborious a student of Elizabethan literature failed to go further in his study of this interesting work of Pettie.

INTRODUCTION

(III. ii. 110.)

suggested perhaps by Pettie's remembring the saying, 'that the Eagle breedeth not the Pigeon, but that Cat ' will after kynde' (Bk. 111. 15).

Closely following comes a phrase of Touchstone's which has perplexed some of the commentators so much that copious emendation has been suggested of the First Folio reading,'ranke': 'I'll rhyme you so, eight years together

it is the right Butter-women's ranke to market' (III. ii. 102). Pettie, however, removes all difficulty, for he not only uses the word objected to, but tells us what it means: All the women in the towne runne thyther of a ranke, as it were in procession' (Bk. 111. 77).

When Touchstone exclaims to Audrey: 'I would the gods had made thee poetical,' her answer is: 'I do not know what poetical is. Is it honest in deed and word?' 'No, truly,' replies the Clown, for the truest poetry is 'the most feigning,' and so forth (111. iii. 17 sq.). But Guazzo had led the way, in saying, 'In my minde it may 'be saide, that these professours of eloquence, under the colour of an Oratour, playe the parte of a Poet: and by 'the feigning of woordes, shewe the little plaine dealing that is in them' (Bk. 1. 124).

Pettie in his Preface (p. 10) uses some strong words against those traveylers abrode -as he styles themand their contemning of their Countrey fashions, their apish imitation of every outlandish Asse in their gestures, ' behaviour, and apparell .. as I myselfe have heard

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INTRO- some of them, they report abrode, that our Countrey is DUCTION⚫ barbarous, our maners rude, and our people uncivile.' Where else but here did Rosalind find so good a model for

her Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp, and 'wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity,' etc.?

In Act iv. Sc. i. 178, Rosalind in a playful spirit warns her lover on the subject of unfaithfulness: 'O! that 6 woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occa'sion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will 'breed it like a fool.' The phrase 'her husband's occasion' is by no means free from difficulty, but the following passage would seem to give the real explanation, as well as showing that Shakespeare had it in his mind when he wrote the lines: And if perchaunce the husbande have some 'occasion given him to mistrust, let him examine his owne life well, and he shall finde that the occasion came by him 'selfe, and that he hath not used her as he ought to have done' (Bk. 111. 23).

If we had no other evidence that Shakespeare was familiar with the books of Etiquette of his day, Touchstone's remark in Act v. would establish the fact that he was:

'JAQUES. Can you nominate in order now the degrees1 of
the lie ?

'TOUCH. O sir, we quarrel in print; by the book, as you have
books for good manners.'
(Sc. iv. 94 sqq.)

The author of those lines was surely thinking of the
Civile Conversation here, and more particularly of that

1 Touchstone had previously mentioned that their number was seven.

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portion of it which runs as follows: Nowe touching the INTRODUCTION unnoble or yeomen . . many of them have an infirmitie 'more greevous and pernicious then any before rehearsed: 'which is, that they will not acknowledge and confesse themselves inferiour to Gentlemen, both by nature, 'fortune, and vertue: not knowing that amongst the seven degrees of superioritie, this is particularly set downe of 'Gentlemen over the baser sorte, who by all reason ought 'to submitte themselves to their will and pleasure' (Bk. 11. 195).

Comedy of Errors.

In this play the Duke, believing that every one present had gone mad, exclaims: 'I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup' (v. i. 271). I can find no parallel to the phrase 'Circe's cup.' It does not occur in Golding's Metamorphoses, where the home of Circe is fully described, as also the mixing of the potion. Pettie, however, uses it: Yea, wee must deale so warily in the matter, that it may bee said that wee have been in the very jawes of Scilla, and drunke of Cyrces cup. . . (Bk. 11. 245-6);

and this is plainly the source from which Shakespeare took the words.

Again, in the same play we have

'O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note' (III. ii. 45), and

'I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song' (ib. 166). This early term for ‘siren was by no means common, but Pettie uses it: to stop his eares, as Ulisses did against the song of the Marmaides' (Bk. 1. 52). It

INTRO- should be stated, however, that Florio's Dictionary, 1611, DUCTION gives Siréna, a Syren, a Mermaide."

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Coriolanus.

When Guazzo's dialogue turns on gentle and courteous speech, Anniball remarks: Yet woulde I have every one keepe that majestie and state whiche is due to his estate. 'For to bee too popular and plausible, were to make 'largesse of the treasures of his curtesie . . .' (Bk. 11. 158). And this is the very keynote of what Shakespeare makes Coriolanus say to the Third and Fourth Citizens in Act II. Sc. iii. I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man, and give it bountifully to the desirers.' The echo of Pettie's phrasing is here no doubt decked with the embroidery that came so readily from the dramatist when adapting some other writer's words; in which respect it closely resembles the napless vesture humility' already referred to in this Introduction.

Cymbeline.

of

In Cymbeline 11. iv. 147 we have an extremely rare onceword of Shakespeare, i.e. limb-meal-no example of it is given in the New English Dictionary between 1485 and 1590:

'O, that I had her here, to tear her limb-meal.'

And in Pettie is found: there are many which will not sticke to teare him limme meale' (Bk. 1. 60).

Hamlet.

Hamlet furnishes some very remarkable parallels between Shakespeare and Pettie; and of such a character that it